Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s
This thesis is an intellectual history of <em>tehzīb</em> or culture as a key category in the making of a modern Muslim selfhood in colonial North-India and subsequently Punjab-based independent Pakistan. It contributes a conceptual framework and a literary genealogy to historicize <e...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2023
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| _version_ | 1826314699882364928 |
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| author | Malik, ST |
| author2 | Zaman, F |
| author_facet | Zaman, F Malik, ST |
| author_sort | Malik, ST |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | This thesis is an intellectual history of <em>tehzīb</em> or culture as a key category in the making of a modern Muslim selfhood in colonial North-India and subsequently Punjab-based independent Pakistan. It contributes a conceptual framework and a literary genealogy to historicize <em>tehzīb</em>’s modernity in light of the lesser-known ways of its conceptualisation in Urdu literatures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (1830s–1990s). By reading this textual archive against a lengthy history of cultural imaginations intersecting with older narratives of Muslimness, the thesis traces how a peculiar imagination of Muslim (dis)belonging became central to a colonial production of a discourse on <em>tehzīb</em>. Its interlocutors from the nineteenth century onwards were Muslims whose literary engagements with <em>tehzīb</em> allowed them to redefine this imagination by constructing alternative narratives about self, culture, and identity—narratives that did not seek attachment to conventional nationality and nationalism. Building upon this, the thesis argues that <em>tehzīb</em>’s transformation into culture was not so much the outcome of a literal translative equivalence as much as the product of Muslim reimaginations of their sensibility of disbelonging, articulated in languages of modern cultural thinking. While scholarship to date has focused on <em>tehzīb</em>’s disciplining role, a shift from civility to the question of belonging in this thesis highlights another politics of <em>tehzīb</em> running parallel in the Urdu print world. Its formation spanned writings by a first and second generation of reformist intellectuals, ranging from the erudite and elite to the popular and lowbrow novelists and print entrepreneurs, who have not been studied together this way before. Meanwhile, a culturalization of <em>tehzīb</em> has not been evaluated in relation to a body of twentieth century literatures whose narratives were predicated variously upon developing affiliative national attachments, sacralising foreign pasts, articulating aspirations for return, and imagining Islam as an ideological home.
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| first_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:11:37Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:51aed655-88e1-42e1-bff5-a9e9e911f213 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:11:37Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:51aed655-88e1-42e1-bff5-a9e9e911f2132024-10-09T07:24:57ZTehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990sThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:51aed655-88e1-42e1-bff5-a9e9e911f213Pakistan--HistoryNationalism and literatureCultureSouth AsiaIdentity politics in literatureCivilizationIntellectual historyPunjab (India)--HistoryIndia, NorthUrdu literatureHistory, ModernEnglishHyrax Deposit2023Malik, STZaman, FThis thesis is an intellectual history of <em>tehzīb</em> or culture as a key category in the making of a modern Muslim selfhood in colonial North-India and subsequently Punjab-based independent Pakistan. It contributes a conceptual framework and a literary genealogy to historicize <em>tehzīb</em>’s modernity in light of the lesser-known ways of its conceptualisation in Urdu literatures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (1830s–1990s). By reading this textual archive against a lengthy history of cultural imaginations intersecting with older narratives of Muslimness, the thesis traces how a peculiar imagination of Muslim (dis)belonging became central to a colonial production of a discourse on <em>tehzīb</em>. Its interlocutors from the nineteenth century onwards were Muslims whose literary engagements with <em>tehzīb</em> allowed them to redefine this imagination by constructing alternative narratives about self, culture, and identity—narratives that did not seek attachment to conventional nationality and nationalism. Building upon this, the thesis argues that <em>tehzīb</em>’s transformation into culture was not so much the outcome of a literal translative equivalence as much as the product of Muslim reimaginations of their sensibility of disbelonging, articulated in languages of modern cultural thinking. While scholarship to date has focused on <em>tehzīb</em>’s disciplining role, a shift from civility to the question of belonging in this thesis highlights another politics of <em>tehzīb</em> running parallel in the Urdu print world. Its formation spanned writings by a first and second generation of reformist intellectuals, ranging from the erudite and elite to the popular and lowbrow novelists and print entrepreneurs, who have not been studied together this way before. Meanwhile, a culturalization of <em>tehzīb</em> has not been evaluated in relation to a body of twentieth century literatures whose narratives were predicated variously upon developing affiliative national attachments, sacralising foreign pasts, articulating aspirations for return, and imagining Islam as an ideological home. |
| spellingShingle | Pakistan--History Nationalism and literature Culture South Asia Identity politics in literature Civilization Intellectual history Punjab (India)--History India, North Urdu literature History, Modern Malik, ST Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s |
| title | Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s |
| title_full | Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s |
| title_fullStr | Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s |
| title_full_unstemmed | Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s |
| title_short | Tehzīb into culture: the invention and reinvention of Muslim (dis)belonging, c.1830s-1990s |
| title_sort | tehzib into culture the invention and reinvention of muslim dis belonging c 1830s 1990s |
| topic | Pakistan--History Nationalism and literature Culture South Asia Identity politics in literature Civilization Intellectual history Punjab (India)--History India, North Urdu literature History, Modern |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT malikst tehzibintoculturetheinventionandreinventionofmuslimdisbelongingc1830s1990s |